Making it big
Anton Hornauer The industrial revolution events that transformed Britain between 1750 and 1830, from a largely rural population making a living almost entirely from agriculture to a society centered on the city increasingly engaged in the manufacture of the factory. Like thousands of women across rural Britain saw their spinning wheels become redundant and their jobs disappear in the factories moved to the cities. The Industrial Revolution spread throughout Britain. Making use of steam engines, this led to a massive increase in the number of factories, especially textile factories. As the number of factories increased people living in the countryside starts to move to the city to find a better paying job. The salary of a field worker was very low and there were fewer jobs due to the invention and use of new machines like threshers. Also thousands of new workers were needed to work with machines in factories and foundries, besides the owners of the factories use to workers to build their own home. At the beginning of the 19th century about 1/5 of the population of Britain lived there, but in 1851 half the population had taken up residence in London, which like most cities was not prepared for this big incriase of people. The worker's houses were usually near to the factories so that people could walk to work. They were built really quickly and cheaply. The houses were cheap, most had between 2-4 rooms. The problem of the factories was that the chimneys, bridges and factory smoke blocked most of the light in the cities. A layer of dirty smoke often covered the streets like a blanket. This came from factories that use steam to operate their machines. The vapor was made by the combustion of coal to heat the water. Burning coal produces a lot of dirty smoke, black. {C Child Labour Many factory workers were children. They worked long hours and were often treated badly by the supervisors or overseers. Sometimes the children started work as young as four or five years old. A young child could not earn much, but even a few pence would be enough to buy food. Children often worked long and extra hours in factories and had to carry out some hard job. In match factories children were employed to dip matches into a chemical called phosphorous. This phosphorous could cause their teeth to rot and some died from the effect of breathing it into their lungs. Coal Mines The coal mines were dangerous places where roofs sometimes caved in, explosions happened and workers got all sorts of injuries. There were very few safety rules. Cutting and moving coal which machines do nowadays was done by men, women and children. {C The younger children often worked as "trappers" who worked trap doors. They sat in a hole hollowed out for them and held a string which was fastened to the door. When they heard the coal wagons coming they had to open the door by pulling a string. This job was one of the easiest down the mine but it was very lonely and the place where they sat was usually damp and draughty. Older children might be employed as "coal bearers" carrying loads of coal on their backs in big baskets. {C {C {C - Martin Elorriaga A. The industrial revolution was an important fact in the Victorian Times because was the beginning of the use of technology. The new technologies were in the textile industria, the iron making and the more important that is the steam power. These new technologies change the way of thinking of the people of Victorian Times and are the basis of our advanced technology. So the indusrtial revolution is a very important fact in the world history and a very interesting topic to investigate, I search information in internet and I found a very good source that show the main importants things of the Industrial Revolution and explain what happend with the world when the new technologies start beginto born.